Shooters hit the bull’s eye, shuttlers stay on course

The experienced Jaspal Rana and partner Samresh Jung brought more cheer to the country by picking up the silver medal in the men’s 10m air pistol event on a day which saw Australia dominate the shooting ranges scooping up two of the four gold medals at stake.

Though Rana and Jung were among of the favourites to take the top honours, they did not live up to their awesome reputation and had to be content with the silver medal with an aggregate of 1137. The English pair of Nicholas Baxter and Michael Gault took the gold with 1140 points.

The Indian duo aggregated a record 1184 points to not only re-write the Commonwealth Games record but also open the medal account for the largest ever Indian contingent which had mixed fortunes yesterday.

Bindra and partner Ambekar produced highest scores in five of the six rounds in the series to finish clear of the Malaysian pair of Mohomad Erman Zakaria and Mohammad Hameleay Mutalib who had to be content with the silver with a total of 1164 points.

The Indian shuttlers, who had swamped Northern Ireland with an emphatic 5-0 margin in their first match yesterday, continued their winning run by thrashing lowly Seychelles with an identical margin today to brighten their medal prospects.

Marcos Bristow and Sachin Ratti gave the Indian team the perfect start by carving out a comfortable 3-0 victory over Georgie Cupidon and Nicholas Jumaye in men’s doubles. They recorded a straight set 7-0, 7-0, 7-2 victory. The talented Abhinn Shyamgupta consolidated the team’s position by winning his singles match against Georgie Cupidon 7-0, 7-0, 7-0.

The women’s doubles team comprising Deepti and Neelima Choudhury had no difficulty brushing aside the challenge of the Seychelles duo of Juliette-Ah Wan and Katherina Paulin with a 7-1, 7-3, 7-1 verdict to give India an invincible 3-0 lead.

In the women’s singles, BR Meenakshi continued the Indian dominace drubbing Juliette-Ah Wan 7-1, 7-4, 7-4 while mixed doubles team of Nikhil Kanetkar and Trupti Murgunde provided the finishig touches to the rout with a 7-0, 7-0, 7-2 victory over Nicholas Jumaye and Katherina Paulin in the mixed doubles event.